Sydney Film Festival Digital Archive Online

The Sydney Film Festival has now placed its digital archive online as part of the 2013 Festival. The archive covers all of the films shown at the festival for the past 60 years.

Click the link below to go to the website -

The Sydney Film Festival Digital Archive

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Thanks For Sharing

Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow - Thanks For Sharing

Film director and screenwriter, Stuart Blumberg and an experienced and diverse cast, including Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Pink and Josh Gad, bring an unusual comedy topic to the screen with a warm, witty screenplay. The story line follows a group of people who join a support group for sex addiction. There is also a nod given in the film to other addictions which affect people's lives such as drugs and alcohol and this interplays as a sub plot. The general outline of the film follows Adam (Mark Ruffalo), who has reached the 5 year mark in controlling his urges and is ready to consider dating and a relationship again. He meets the attractive but wary Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow), a cancer survivor who has previously experienced a relationship with an alcoholic. Adam's sponsor in the support group, Mike (Tim Robbins) has his own problem to confront through his now recovered drug-addicted son returning home. A newcomer to the group is Neil (Josh Gad) a doctor whose addiction is destroying his hard worked-for career in medicine. The group is completed by Dede (Pink) whose life and relationships are being ruined by her own addiction. The film has many funny moments as well as scenes which confront the issue of addictions in whatever guise they come. The overall message is one of hope and life affirmation.  

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Breathe In

Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce - Breathe In

Aspirations and reality, frustrated ambition, disconnection and a sense of entrapment are the critical themes explored in Breathe In from director and screenwriter, Drake Doremus. Set in a small community in Connecticut in the United States, the film story line centres on the life of high school music teacher, Keith Reynolds (Guy Pearce), a former rock musician now classical music cellist and his family. Reynolds lives a standard middle class life with his cookie-jar-collector wife Meg and his sports oriented daughter Lauren. He plays part-time for a New York Symphony Orchestra and yearns to have be a permanent member of the Orchestra so he can leave teaching. Into this situation comes British foreign exchange student and classical musician, Sophie (Felicity Jones) who not only is accomplished in her field of music but understands the rigours and fears of the concert performer. She also seeks escape and is drawn to Keith on several levels and the two almost start a relationship and run off together, just as discovery by Megan and Lauren occurs.

This is an intimate family drama film with good understated scripting and consummate performances by Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones. The seemingly perfect suburban family is seen as a facade and the subject of frustrated ambition is poignantly highlighted - all the more so as Keith wins a permanent position with the Symphony Orchestra with Sophie's calming presence. An intelligent drama carefully constructed.

Sydney film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Only God Forgives

Ryan Gosling - Only God Forgives

Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn brings to the screen a visually dazzling yet brutal story set almost entirely in the neon, nightime world of Bangkok. With a notable cast including Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and from Thailand, Vithaya Pansringarm and Yayaying Rhatha Phongam, this muscular film set against the backdrop of Thai Kickboxing and organised crime follows a theme of rage, betrayal and ultimately a form of redemption. The storyline follows Julian (Ryan Gosling) an American who runs a Thai boxing club in Bangkok and whose brother, Billy operates a drug dealing business on the side. When Billy is murdered as revenge for his killing of a Thai young sex worker girl, Jenna (Kristin Scott Thomas) the mother of Julian and Billy, arrives in Bangkok to collect her son's body and to seek revenge. Their protagonist is a senior Thai police officer Chang, also known as the 'Angel of Vengeance' who ceremonially dispatches his opponents with a Thai short sword (known as the Krabi) with a terrifying interpretation of justice. When Jenna orders a hit on the Thai police which fails, there is no doubt that little mercy will be shown.

This film has a superb element of menace, dark mood setting, controlled extreme violence with just a small element of the similar cinematic style of Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill). Although not for the faint hearted, this film has value within its genre not the least of which is the rendition of characters by the actors - Kristin Scott Thomas portrays Jenna superbly as manipulative, malevolent with elements of Oedipal tendencies, Ryan Gosling is the brooding, sexually repressed dysfunctional Julian while Vithaya Pansringarm provides the contrast with the disciplined, measured, take-no-prisoners approach to policing.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Before Midnight

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy - Before Midnight

Richard Linklater's film starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy is a tedious affair resembling a endless, trivial conversation shot with a single continuous take - but lasting over one and a half hours. An American man, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman, Celina (Julie Delpy) now close to middle age, recount the moment when they first met as young adults on a train in Austria and thereafter the ongoing details of their domestic life are recounted while they constantly walk (and sit) in various locations - in ruins, in shops, on the seaside, as guests in a group lunch, at a cafe, in the car and so on. The dialogue is quite well written but unduly repetitive and endless with little other activity occurring on screen. This is a film which could have provided a greater level of depth and fails to use the talents of Hawke or Delpy to any great level. Although the film is promoted as providing an atmosphere between the two leads as 'fresh and new' in reality, the title of the film could have been better set as 'After Midnight' so the audience could be forgiven for being asleep.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - For Those In Peril

Aaron (George MacKay) searches for his lost brother - For Those in Peril

Scottish film film director, Paul Wright, makes his feature film debut with this story about loss, alienation and ultimately magical transcendence. The plot line for this film follows a young fisherman, Aaron who is the sole survivor of the loss of a fishing trawler, the other five crew including his older brother, Michael disappearing into the sea. Aaron cannot remember any aspect of the event and the local village, imbued with superstition  and seagoing folklore blame him for the loss. Aaron becomes isolated from the community and causes further grief and anger amongst the village by insisting his brother is still alive and complicating the situation by becoming involved with his older brother's fiancee. The film is almost as cold and bleak as the location in  Scotland at which it was shot. Aaron's mother, Cathy (actress Kate Dickie) is torn between the loss of her eldest son Michael and the apparent mental illness of Aaron and reluctantly she agrees to have him institutionalised. The night before he is due to leave, Aaron disappears and the film closes with his transformation. This film has a blanket of sadness throughout its length yet it's not exaggerated nor overstated.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - The Broken Circle Breakdown

Elise (Veerle Baetens) and Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) on stage 

A Belgian bluegrass music band playing American country music and a passionate relationship between the band's lead guitarist and his tattoo artist (and later the band's lead vocalist) form the basis for this film by Felix van Groeningen. The central characters, Didier (the bluegrass band's banjo-playing lead - actor, Johan Heldenbergh) and Elise (the tattoo artist and vocalist - actress, Veerle Baetens) have been in a rapturous relationship for seven years further infused by the music of the band which Elise joins as lead singer. Together with their little daughter, Maybelle, they form a happy family unit and picture of domestic bliss. When Maybelle falls ill with cancer, Didier and Elise are severely tested and their relationship starts coming apart. Ultimately tragedy occurs more than once in this film with the full spectrum of emotions being displayed on the cinema screen. Felix van Groeningen's screenplay is masterful with its conveyance of passion matched by the vitality of bluegrass music making a potent mix.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - The Rocket

A rocket explodes on launch at the Rocket Festival

Australian film director and screen writer, Kim Mordaunt who filmed the acclaimed documentary, Bomb Harvest, released in 2007 has returned to Laos for this feature film of a coming-of-age story. The story plot line revolves around 10-year-old Ahlo who with his family is displaced from their home by the construction of a large dam. While travelling to their relocation village, Ahlo's mother is killed in an accident and the family finds itself almost destitute on arrival as the relocation village is not much more than self-built shacks. The village itself is superstitious and Ahlo and his family are forced to flee along with his new friend Kia and her uncle, Purple. Seeking a new life, Ahlo hears of the Rocket Festival, a dangerous, crazy event where large bamboo rockets are launched into the clouds to bring rain but with the incentive of a large cash prize for the winner whose rocket travels the furthest into the clouds. Ahlo builds his own rocket and challenges for the first prize. Ever present throughout this film is the legacy of the Vietnam war with bomb craters, live cluster bombs and large active munitions still littering the landscape and casting a long shadow over the lives of the Laotian people. Overall this is a feel-good film shot in an evocative landscape with a story of overcoming the odds.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Oh Boy

Niko (Tom Shilling) and his father on the golf course

Oh Boy is the feature film debut for German film director, Jan Ole Gerster and deservedly has been a hit winning a number of awards. Its a light-hearted, breezy comedy which does have a serious element both for the characters portrayed and the locational setting which is the German capital, Berlin, currently undergoing transformation. The film has also been shot in grainy black and white which brings an alluring appeal and effective conveyance of mood. The story focuses on law college dropout, Niko (Tom Shilling), who simultaneously loses his girlfriend, has his financial support cut off (after his father discovers Niko dropped out of his course two years earlier) and finds it difficult to actually buy a simple cup of normal coffee. Through a series of chance encounters with various people including many from his past, creating a profound influence on him, Niko finds meaning and an insight into life. This film is episodic in structure and has many humorous points with disarming use of black humour and irony. Tom Shilling portrays the hapless bewildered Niko with laid back conviction seeking to find his way while Berlin, a city with a dramatic historical past, including the Nazi era, provides the canvass for this search.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - The Look of Love

Steve Coogan and Anna Friel - The Look of Love

The latest collaboration between British film director, Michael Winterbottom and actor/producer Steve Coogan is a film of the true-to-life story of British entrepreneur, Paul Raymond. Often called the 'King of Soho', Raymond built a huge night-club, real estate and porn publishing empire worth hundreds of millions of pounds in the second half of the 20th Century. The film concentrates on Raymond's relationship with the three critical women in his life - his divorced wife Jean (Anna Friel), his girlfriend Fiona (Tamsin Egerton) and his beloved daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots). The film has a high level of titillation (its a tits and bum film), indulgence (Raymond seems to drink only champagne whilst entertaining numerous lovers in his penthouse) and drug taking (endless snorting of cocaine). Tragedy strikes when Debbie accidentally dies from a drug overdose just as Raymond was starting to transfer control of his business empire to her. This film is fairly shallow with an over-emphasis on the night club scenes and bare breasts providing little insight into Paul Raymond himself or the acumen which enabled him to be listed as Britain's richest man, the year after his daughter's death. 

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Mood Indigo

Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou over the Paris skyline

Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo is a truly bizarre visual feast of film with an array of unique, spectacular images and special effects leaving the viewer either laughing or perceiving they are visiting an alternative reality. Based on Boris Vian's aptly titled book 'Froth on the Daydream' the story is centred on Colin (Roman Duris) and Chloe (Audrey Tautou) who fall in love and have an idyllic marriage except Chloe becomes ill as a water lilly is growing in one of her lungs. Watching this film requires a suspension of belief - with a door bell on legs which runs up and down the wall, a man dressed up as a mouse living in a replica of Colin's house and a cook who interacts with a chef appearing on a black and white television, the surreal experience is just beginning. For those who enjoy a film which often has little logic and presents endless crazy images (when the police  are called they arrive in a six legged vehicle), Mood Indigo will appeal.

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie's novel has been adapted and brought to the screen by film director, Deepa Mehta - although the adaptation remains true to the book as the screenplay and narration for the film is by Rushdie himself. The story timeline spans the modern historical period from Indian Independence, through Partition with Pakistan into the recent past reflecting the hopes and tragedies of tumultuous events in this region of the world. The plot is centred around two boys, Saleem Sinai and Shiva both born at the moment of India's independence at midnight and through the actions of hospital nurse, swapped to different parents.  From that point they travel different paths, one in an affluent family, the other as the son of penniless drunk busker. They are two of hundreds of children whom are born with special powers at this time - ultimately fate will draw them together as protagonists with fatal consequences. 

The film is beautifully shot, predominantly in Sri Lanka (Rushdie's old opponent, the State of Iran, initially tried to stop the film production but the Sri Lankan Government ultimately approved the film. Religious intolerance, old school ties particularly between military officers, family social prejudices and a none-too-subtle criticism of Indira Ghandi are strongly articulated in the film. In many respects, the length of the story could be shorter and the use of 'magical children' is often incongruous with the serious nature of events being portrayed. It is ultimately a film with metaphors, allegorical representations and metaphysical constructs.

 

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Stoker

Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska

Master Korean Film Director, Park Chan-wook's first English language film is best described as more atmospheric than tangible and more horror than suspenceful. Stoker has three of Australia's current best known actresses in its cast - Nicole Kidman, Jackie Weaver and Mia Wasikowska as well as a competent male lead role with Matthew Goode - however there is only so much a good cast can do to manage a muddle of a script which depends much on scenery and lighting and little on conveyance through dialogue. Described as a haunting Neo-Gothic thriller with a nod to Hitchcock, the film story is structured around the world of India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), a strange introverted young woman who likes to hunt animals, having been trained and shared this interest with her father. Her life and that of her unstable mother (Nicole Kidman) is disrupted by the sudden unexpected death of her father and the arrival of his long-lost brother Charlie (Matthew Goode). Charlie allegedly has been travelling the world but the discovery of old letters by India, reveals he has been in a mental institution and has a predilection for murder. India's aunt (jackie Weaver) also arrives but before she can give a warning about Charlie, he disposes of her.

With gratuitous violence and latent sexual awakening between Charlie and India, this is a voyeuristic film with a superficial plot, shallow one-dimensional psychopathic characters and elements of sado-masochism.  

Sydney Film Festival 2013 - Film Review - Wadjda

Waad Mohammed in a scene from 'Wadjda'

As the first feature film to be shot in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (where there are no cinemas), Wadjda immediately should attract attention and this simple yet reflective film is deserving of such interest. Written and directed by Saudi-born but University of Sydney educated Haifaa Al Mansour, the story is centred on 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), a rebellious, fun-loving yet determined girl growing up in a deeply conservative Islamic society. Wadjda longs to own a bicycle and one day sees a new green one delivered to a local shop so she sets about raising the money to purchase her bike through all manner of activities. Her mother has been reluctant to buy it for her fearing the opinion of wider Saudi society which considers a bicycle as dangerous to a girl's virtue. The film captures effectively the divisions and contradictions between men and women in Saudi society and manages to be gently subversive. Wadjda's fund-raising efforts to buy the bicycle include winning a Koran recitation competition at her school and appearing to be the model of conversion and piety despite being considered by her teachers to be an endless source of frustration. 

Shot with a German production team in Saudi Arabia, the director, Haifaa Al Mansour often had to operate out of a production truck using screen monitors to direct as she was not permitted on the street. Her script is partly autobiographical as it draws upon the experiences of some members of her family. An insightful film, sometimes slow moving and in Arabic with English subtitles, Wadjda  provides a window into a society which is at the cross-roads of change.

Norovirus - the global hitchhiker

Norovirus image

Vomiting, often in projectile form, diarrhoea, muscle and head aches and a churning stomach which lasts a day or two - the symptoms of Norovirus, arguably one of the most common human pathogens on the planet and for which there is no known treatment or vaccine. Norovirus is particularly prevalent during Winter months and highly infectious as exposure to as few as 17 virus particles can lead to infection in comparison to almost 1,000 which are needed for influenza to take hold.

For an RNA virus, Norovirus is very resilient being able to withstand most chemical detergents, freezing and heating up to 600C. It can also survive for up to 2 weeks on hard surfaces such as doorknobs and  tablecloths. There are around 40 identified strains. One study in 2009 the Netherlands which examined a jamboree which had been over-run by Norovirus found that for every person who fell sick, fourteen others were infected. These are startling rates of transmission and account for the speed at which Norovirus epidemics can quickly move to pandemics. Norovirus has two main groups (termed genogroups) which afflict humans - GI and GII - within each of these are viral variants with GII.4 currently having the greatest mutation capacity.  The mutation capability of Norovirus is what makes it hard for the immune system to identify the pathogen  and attack it.

With the Winter season now in full swing in the Southern Hemisphere, the global hitchhiker is bound to make its appearance. In 2012, Novovirus GII.4 Sydney progressed to world -wide infection with a substanial impact on the United Kingdom.

Eyes in Space - Canada's sentinel in the sky

Canada's NEOSSat

The surprise explosion of a meteor over Russia on 15th February this year, again served as a reminder of the vulnerability of the planet and its' inhabitants to contact with near-earth objects. The meteor was undetected and estimated to be approx 17 metres wide delivering a 470-kiloton blast with a shock wave that damaged 3,000 buildings and injured over 1,500 people in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia.

Canada has added to the relatively small number of assets available for space monitoring with the launch on 25 February 2013 of the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat). The suitcase-sized NEOSSat orbits approximately 800 kilometres above the Earth, searching for near-Earth asteroids that are difficult to see using ground-based optical telescopes. NEOSSat is not limited by the day-night cycle but operates round the clock. It circles the globe every 100 minutes, scanning space near the Sun to pinpoint asteroids that have proximity to the Earth. Despite the additional surveillance there remains a significant number of unseen objects as shown below. 

Size in metres	Unknown %
1,000 upwards	7%
150-999	67%
40-149	99%